At 17, I Never Thought My Life Would Turn Out Like This

One woman reflects on things #10yrslater

1

I stumbled into my cluttered shoebox of a studio apartment in Hollywood at about midnight—earlier than I’d planned to get home, but after what had seemed like the longest day ever—and looked down at my stack of mail. Sticking out from under the usual late notices, unpaid bills and rhinestone-studded wedding invitations was a large manila envelope.

As I held it, my thumbs caressing my handwritten name, I recognized the scrawl of a lefty trying so hard to keep her letters in the lines; the subtle restraint in the penmanship of a woman who wished her writing looked sophisticated instead of mirroring her unkempt nature. I recognized it because it was mine.

In my senior year of high school, our teachers had asked us to write a letter to ourselves, to be opened 10 years later. Who did we wish to be at age 27? If we could say anything in the world to our future selves, what would it be?

Ten years later, my letter was back in my hands, forwarded by my parents, who have lived in the same house since before I was born. I sank into the depths of my seafoam green couch, purchased for $100 from Craigslist, and let out a huge sigh.

The letter felt like an omen, especially after the day I’d had. While I was training my last pilates student of the evening, a Beverly Hills fake-breasted type, she said she was worried about me after noticing I’d gained some weight—just as I was preparing to change into the very tight LBD I had brought to wear on my date that night. As much as I wanted to let her have it, I nodded in agreement, afraid that otherwise I might lose her business.

The downward spiral continued on the date itself, when the man I’d been seeing almost daily for two months confessed that he was getting back together with his wife. I hadn’t known he had a wife, let alone that he was contemplating getting back together with her. Maybe I should have been suspicious when he never invited me over to his house. What guy ever let a “lack of furniture” stop him from getting some action? Knowing the truth made me feel like such a fool. I’d really been falling for him, and now he was the latest in a string of assholes I’d worked too hard to impress.

As I tore open the envelope, part of me hoped it would contain some nugget of insight into my inner self that would pull me out of the cycle of disappointment I couldn’t seem to escape, something to trigger me into action toward a better life. Maybe I’d remember that I’d always wanted to become something fabulous, like a doctor—I might even find a line warning me about married men and the spotty paychecks of pilates instructors.

Not a chance. Instead, as I read, it became clear that the younger me had been certain that by now I’d be married to the love of my life, would have several adorable, well-behaved children and, most important, would be filthy rich. All very amusing, but as I got to the end of the letter, my amusement quickly faded:

I know you are going to be reading this 10 years from now…. I am so insecure about myself…. I hope 10 years from now I am really proud of myself, because I am not proud of myself now…. Love yourself, respect yourself, stand up for yourself and don’t let people push you around because I let people do it to me now. Please, please, I hope I am secure and self-assured 10 years from now.

I reread this part over and over. I put the letter down and then came back to the same paragraph five minutes later. At first, I couldn’t figure out why it bothered me. I mean, in a way I didn’t even know who this girl was, didn’t connect with the letter at all. These were the decade-old musings of a child too young to vote!

But I kept seeing that word please. And I could hear my own voice saying it over and over, louder and louder, as though I were begging. And then it struck me: My problem was not that my guy turned out to be married, or that my apartment was a disaster, or that my snobby client had pointed out the extra pounds I was carrying on my midsection. It was that, in the 10 years after I’d begged myself to learn to treat myself with respect, I still hadn’t done it. When my date told me about his wife, I nodded and thanked him (thanked him!) for his honesty, when I probably should have kicked him in the balls. Sort of like how I should have told my client to mind her own business and focus on improving her own body, not mine. My 17-year-old self suddenly seemed so much wiser than the self I was at 27, and I felt ashamed that after a whole decade I still hadn’t figured out how to stand up for myself.

As soon as I had this thought, my next impulse was to prove that I was more self-assured—that I had changed. Well, to be honest, my very next impulse was to call my date and tell him how stupid he was, how amazing I was and exactly where to shove it. But I stopped myself: Years of dating had taught me the difference between getting revenge and seeming pathetic. Maybe I had changed a little.

Instead, I spent hours staring at the open letter from the other side of the room, thinking about all the times I’d felt unworthy and beaten myself up instead of forgiving myself. I stood in front of the mirror, trying to cry. But the crazy thing was that as each hour passed, with memories of self-loathing blasting through my mind, as much as I tried to feel bad for myself, I couldn’t. The tears wouldn’t come.

Slowly, it became clear that even though

the letter was only a few feet away, the space between us was really 10 years of a life that, like my cursive writing, was messy and unkempt but wholeheartedly mine. No, I wasn’t where I thought I’d be when I wrote to myself at 17: I lived alone, single and childless (and not in a mansion); I was financially unstable; and I’d probably had too much to drink. But I knew that this was where I was meant to be: just as I am, with 10 years of perfectly imperfect moments behind me. Like dinner parties with my best girlfriends, lit by candles so you couldn’t see the stains on the tablecloth, and finding holes in the seat of my yoga pants after a day of showing clients how to transform their bodies—while showing them my underwear.

And that night, the imperfect—OK, far from perfect—moments came with a lesson, one of those hit-you-over-the-head-write-it-down-and-send-it-to-yourself-10-years-from-now-so-you-don’t-forget kind of lessons. The lesson that 10 years is an arbitrary number, and to have expectations about where you should be in your life at any particular time is soul suicide. That certain fears—of being alone or unsuccessful—might never go away, and that’s OK, because they can be the very things that drive you forward. That happiness might be found quietly resting in a tiny shoebox of an apartment, where you realize that even though life might not be quite what you expected, it’s still pretty great.

I think the biggest lesson I took from that letter was that I do have one obligation to myself, one that my 17-year-old naïve self somehow knew to articulate and my 27-year-old self suddenly understood: I need to love and respect my process of self-discovery. Because it’s exactly that: a process. I should feel comfortable that my experiences are learning moments teaching me step-by-step how to love and embrace me, cellulite and all. That even if the progress is subtle, it’s there, and I’m doing the best I can. And I think—no, I know—that’s something to be proud of.

I wondered for a moment what my 17-year-old self would think if she could see me now. I assumed she would convince me to get rid of the hideous green couch, put a new one on the credit card and pay it off later. I bet she would like my haircolor and think pilates was awesome. I guessed she might like me, too. A lot, actually.

And if my 17-year-old self saw me now and was asked to write to me again, I imagined her letter might end with “Next time, kick him in the balls.”